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Mark Meadows has taken chances in rapid rise to power

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows chats with an unidentified man before addressing the Council of Independent Business Owners and answering questions Friday at UNC Asheville.(Photo: Maddy Jones/mjones@citizen-times)Buy Photo

The day after Mark Meadows, then a Macon County real estate developer, announced in 2011 that he was running for the U.S. House seat representing most of Western North Carolina, Buncombe County resident Chuck Archerd gave him a call and requested a meeting.

Meadows and Archerd, also a real estate developer who has been active in Republican politics, didn't know each other, but not long afterward the two spent an hour and a half or so over breakfast at the Waffle House on Airport Road in Arden.

Archerd said he "just peppered him with questions" and found his fellow Republican to be "very personable, reasonably conservative and very articulate – and I always appreciate a man of faith."

Meadows won over Archerd and his checkbook: Archerd's $2,500 contribution was one of the first 10 large gifts given to Meadows' campaign.

Throughout his political career, Meadows has seized his opportunities like his unexpected call from Archerd.

After the state General Assembly in 2011 redrew the lines of WNC's main congressional district to make it more favorable to Republicans, Meadows jumped into the race. He loaned his campaign $250,000, got the support of the previous GOP nominee, then emerged from an eight-way Republican primary and a runoff before handily winning his House seat in the 2012 general election.

He sparked an ultimately unsuccessful effort to defund the Affordable Care Act in 2013 and in 2015 helped usher House Speaker John Boehner out the door.

Those efforts made Meadows a logical pick when the House Freedom Caucus, a group of the chamber's 30 or 40 most conservative Republicans, chose him as its second chairman in December. Soon thereafter, the mathematics of the House presented Meadows with another big opportunity: shaping legislation to repeal and replace the ACA, commonly called Obamacare.

With 237 Republicans and 193 Democrats in the House, plus five vacant seats, legislation can't pass without votes from either Freedom Caucus members or Democrats. With Democrats uniformly opposing the Republican plan, Meadows became a key player in negotiations over what to do about the law he and other Republicans had railed against since it was passed in March 2010.

Meadows hasn't been able to make the most of this opportunity yet, as Republicans have been unable to agree on legislation. But talks will continue, and he'll have chances to put his stamp on tax law, federal spending and other issues Republicans have been itching to tackle for years.

Here's a look at how political and personal skills and anti-government sentiment helped put a congressman who hasn't even been in Washington five years yet in a position to be wrangling with President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan over a health care bill that could affect millions of Americans – and what might happen next.

'Classic nerd'

Meadows grew up a self-described "fat kid" and "classic nerd" in a working-class family in Tampa, Florida. Getting turned down for a date launched him on an all-out effort to lose weight, he said in a 2012 interview.

He started out unable to run a mile, was up to running 4 miles a night within a month and a half, and lost 25 pounds in 70 days. He later said the experience taught him discipline.

Meadows married his wife, Debbie, when he was 20. He paid his way through school, got a business management degree from the University of South Florida and worked in his early 20s as director of customer relations and public safety for Tampa Electric.

In 1986, the couple moved to Highlands, where they had honeymooned. Using a line of credit, they opened a sandwich shop in the small town in southern Macon County, where multimillion-dollar homes owned by families from around the Southeast dot the ridges.

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U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows speaks about health care to the Council of Independent Business Owners Friday at UNC Asheville's Sherrill Center.(Photo: Maddy Jones/mjones@citizen-times.com)

Meadows initially calculated that he'd be broke six weeks after opening, but he was able to sell the business three years later at a profit. He'd gotten his real estate license and began selling homes and land, later starting his own agency and moving into real estate development and investing as well.

Meadows' friend Dean Colson, an attorney from the Miami area, hired Meadows to sell some family land and found, "He couldn't be more hard working and personable."

Meadows' most recent financial disclosure form says his assets were worth between $1.81 million and $6.9 million in 2015. (Meadows also reported owing between $1.75 million and $6.5 million on those assets.) He and his wife sold their home in southern Jackson County for $1.3 million last year, the Sylva Herald reported.

Making connections

Meadows was involved in party politics for several years before running for a seat in Congress. Ralph Slaughter, a friend and chairman of the Jackson County Republican Party, credited him with getting the Macon County Republican Party "really kicked off" after a period of dormancy when Meadows lived in Highlands.

But many who didn't know him probably would not have picked Meadows as the favorite to even get the Republican nomination before the 2012 race kicked off. Meadows had never held public office and working-class mountain residents might look askance at a wealthy real estate developer from Florida, even though many share his self-described conservative Christianity.

Those who met him might have been clued in to Meadows' potential, however.

Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University who watched the 2012 race closely, said there were few differences on the issues among the eight GOP contenders.

The tea party movement was on the rise and among the issues candidates discussed were where President Barack Obama was born and the supposed dangers of Agenda 21, a United Nations program, for U.S. sovereignty.

When the candidates debated, "Those really were debates about who would be the best representative instead of who had the right ideology," Cooper said.

The campaign showed that Meadows, Cooper said, is "talented at connecting with people. I think he's very good at communicating very complex ideas simply, and he has money and access to money as well, and that certainly didn't hurt."

Colson, the Miami-area attorney, said he donated to Meadows even though they don't necessarily see eye-to-eye on political issues.

"I think Mark Meadows is an honorable, honest, hard-working guy who does what he thinks is best for the country. I don't always agree with him, but I don't question his motives," he said.

Meadows' 37.8 percent of the vote in the Republican primary was miles ahead of his nearest competitor, even if about 2,000 votes shy of the total he needed to win the nomination outright. But facing a runoff didn't much matter, as Meadows got 76.2 percent of that vote.

Incumbent Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler, a former football star who grew up in Swain County, didn't seek re-election in 2012 after the state General Assembly took most of Asheville's overwhelmingly liberal voters and put them in Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry's 10th Congressional District. Shuler's chief of staff, Graham County native Hayden Rogers, ran a vigorous campaign, but Meadows beat him easily with 57.4 percent of the vote.

Meadows hasn't had a serious challenge since.

'They move the goal posts'

In Washington, Meadows ignored the unwritten rule that freshmen congressmen are meant to be seen but not heard. He wrote a letter in 2013 advocating that Congress not pass spending bills without defunding the Affordable Care Act.

The letter helped launch an effort that shut down the federal government for more than two weeks that fall. The push against the ACA failed, but it won Meadows national recognition and support among the tea party movement.

In 2015, even his close allies wondered about the wisdom of Meadows' decision to submit a resolution declaring the job of House speaker, then held by Boehner, to be vacant. Some worried it would make Meadows a pariah in the House, but it turned out to be a key link in a chain of events that saw Boehner step down two months later and burnished Meadows' reputation among the GOP's conservative wing.

Coverage of Meadows by Washington-based reporters often describe him as a nice guy or "affable."

Eleventh District U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Buncombe, speaks with the media on Capitol Hill in Washington March 23.(Photo: Alex Brandon/AP)

"He's a charming guy and it seems sort of at odds with the firebrand ideological positions he takes sometimes," Cooper said.

Whatever the reason, Meadows could be seen frequently on television newscasts even before he was chosen as Freedom Caucus head.

It's been a rapid rise, Cooper said: "It is extraordinarily unusual for a member this junior to be this powerful."

The question now is what Meadows will do with that influence.

Will Meadows and the Freedom Caucus scuttle more legislation proposed by Trump and more mainstream Republicans, much as they did last month with the GOP replacement bill for the ACA? Such a course might please the GOP's most conservative wing, but jeopardize Trump's presidency and Republicans' ability to hold their majority in the House beyond 2018.

Or will Meadows play a role in getting bills passed? That would allow him to help shape potentially dramatic changes in the direction of the federal government and the nation but almost inevitably require compromises that Meadows and fellow caucus members thus far have been loath to make.

Republican congressmen who are not in the Freedom Caucus have their doubts.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., wrote in Friday's New York Times that during negotiations over the ACA replacement bill, caucus members appeared to be satisfied with concessions by Trump to reduce the number of essential benefits that insurance must cover under the ACA.

But then they wanted to do away with provisions of the law that allow people with pre-existing conditions to get insurance and let children stay on their parents' insurance plan until age 26, demands that killed the deal, Kinzinger said. It's a familiar pattern, he said.

"They move the goal posts, and once that happens, they still refuse to play," he wrote.

Meadows said Friday he wants to keep those provisions and opposed the Republican leadership's Obamacare replacement bill because it would not lower insurance premiums.

At least a couple of caucus members have left the group, saying its intransigence hamstrings Republicans and plays into Democrats' hands.

The most recent was Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who announced his departure March 26. "Saying no is easy, leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do," he told CNN.

The fact that Republicans now control both chambers of Congress and the presidency heightens pressure on them to get things done, said Andrew Taylor, a political scientist at N.C. State University.

"This makes establishment Republicans have a little less patience with the (Freedom Caucus) strategy, which does seem to be one more of blocking legislation than trying to push things through," he said. "Republicans realize they have to have an affirmative agenda, and they will be held accountable for that."

In an interview Friday, Meadows said he sees no problem sticking to his beliefs as head of the caucus.

"These are not my principles. These are the principles of the American people, and as long as I fight for the American people and my constituents, I could care less what caucus it represents," he said.

"If it's good for the people I represent, that's what I'm going to stand for ... even at times when it may have personal consequences," Meadows said.

'A safe seat'

The American electorate and Meadows are not always in agreement. Some polls say a majority of Americans now support the ACA, for instance. The positions Meadows takes on social issues may also be out of step with those of most Americans.

However, most Americans don't live in Meadows' 11th District. Despite tweets from Trump last week implying Republicans should vote against Meadows and other Freedom Caucus members next year, Cooper said there is little chance of Meadows being defeated for re-election.

With Trump's popularity at a low level for this point in his presidency and the health care legislation Meadows helped block getting even less support, the president doesn't seem to be in a position to cause Meadows many problems in WNC. Meadows ran ahead of Trump in most counties in the 11th last year.

Slaughter, the Jackson County GOP chairman, said he hears little support for the Republican health care bill.

"Probably seven or eight out of 10 people that I talk with who are aware of what the plan is agree with Mark it was not a good plan," Slaughter said.

Cooper said if Trump were to back a Republican challenger, "That person would be set up to be a sacrificial lamb." He said Meadows "had a safe seat from the moment he was elected" and the 11th is "a district he would have to work to lose."

A wild card in Meadows' future is the outcome of an ethics investigation into the way Meadows' former chief of staff was paid. At issue is whether the employee could lawfully get severance pay, probably not a question that would dramatically affect Meadows' popularity.

Leading the Freedom Caucus is expected to be a two-year job only. Cooper said Meadows will still be powerful once he rotates out of the job.

Taylor is less certain. He said the "personal consequences" Meadows could face would be once again being part of the minority in the House if Republicans have few accomplishments to brag about in 2018, or Meadows losing influence with other GOP congressmen.

"Clearly the Republicans don't want to go into 2018 with a list of legislative failures," he said.

The usual path to power in the House is not being seen on TV or disagreeing on the issues with most congressmen in your political party, Taylor said.

"You become a polarizing figure and polarizing figures become" unpopular, he said. In the House, "People who keep their head down and build relationships tend to do better."

A not-so-new neighbor

Mark Meadows and his wife, Debbie, sold their previous home in Jackson County's Glenville community last summer and moved into an apartment in Biltmore Park's Town Square.

The home had been on the market for some time, Meadows said. Biltmore Park is more central to Meadows' 11th Congressional District and only one exit away from Asheville Regional Airport, easing travel to and from Washington.

He said Friday he is not sure where the couple will live permanently.

"We're looking for something to buy either in Buncombe or Henderson (county). We wanted to make sure we were still in the district," Meadows said.

Mark Meadows

Born: In Verdun, France, while his father was in the military.

Age: 57

Family: Wife, Debbie, and adult children Blake and Haley.

Early years: Grew up in the Tampa, Florida, area.

Education: Graduate of the University of South Florida

Business career: Formerly a manager for an electric utility, then a restaurant owner/operator, then worked as a real estate agent, developer and investor.

Public office: Elected to the U.S. House in November 2012 and re-elected twice since.